I recently wrote a yet-to-be-published article that sprouted from an observation: legal documents, when compared to documents from Adobe, Inc., often look horrid.
There’s no good reason for any document to be difficult to read, so I wrote about how important it is for lawyers to improve the layout of their documents. Unfortunately, I didn’t interview Matthew Butterick.
Butterick, a Los Angeles-based graphic designer and lawyer (yes, I also had to read that twice) wrote Typography for Lawyers. He makes a number of great points, but here’s a tip sheet I read in an article about his efforts to educate lawyers (non-lawyers could use these tips too):
- Decide first how the body text will look.
- Divide the page into foreground and background.
- Make adjustments with the smallest visible increments.
- When in doubt, try it both ways.
- Be consistent.
- Relate each new element to existing elements.
- Keep it simple.
- Imitate what you like.
- Don’t fear white space.
There’s plenty of technical detail behind these tips, but they’re a great overview of good design principles that should guide the technical detail.
Read the original article, written by Michael Rappaport, for more insights, I haven’t read the book so I can’t endorse it, but you can learn more about it here.